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Exposing Feminism within the Church and Christianity

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I’ll be away for awhile tending to family. I hope to eventually add a lot more material to this site. Until then, if anyone has an article that exposes Christian feminism/misandry or related links, please email to cfwatch@ymail.com. I will do a quick “link round up” post to spread the word. If anyone wants to submit an original article, I will post with full credit to the author. I write from a Christian perspective, but I am also interested in hearing and receiving contributions from non-Christians or those who have been turned off by church due to feminization.

This issue is so important I’m asking my readers and other bloggers to do whatever they can to help spread the word and protect men and their future children. Any blogger who wishes to is free to repost this entry in part or its entirety on their own blog with a link back to this page. Literally millions of men are at risk here, and we can help them understand the reality they face.

One of the more dangerous assumptions I see men making is that if they marry a Christian woman they will be somehow shielded from the epidemic of divorce. I’ve stated in the past that most churches talk like Christ but act like Oprah on the issue of divorce. I’ve also shown how Christians like Glenn Stanton from Focus on the Family are actually proud that devout Christians only divorce 38% of the time. More recently I’ve shown that the movie Christians cherish for representing their values on marriage is actually barely dressed up divorce porn for women.

Yet with all of this even I was stunned by comments left on my blog yesterday by a respected Christian author and speaker on the topic of marriage. In my post Promiscuity is good, so long as it is done on the woman’s terms I pointed out that there is no backing for the popular belief that the female preferred form of promiscuity (serial monogamy/ serial polyandry) is more moral than the male preferred form of promiscuity. I used the example of Christians arguing that the wife in Fireproof was justified in her attempt to swing from marriage to marriage:

This is similar to the argument by the Christian women that the wife in Fireproof wasn’t being whorish because she planned on divorcing her husband and marrying the other man she was after before having sex with him.

Sheila Gregoire is one of the Christian women I had in mind when I made that statement, and she noticed the post and defended her position:

But I just want to clarify: I do believe that she had grounds for divorce because of his pornography addiction. I think that’s where the fundamental disagreement comes in. I don’t think she SHOULD have divorced him, anymore than I think a woman should leave a guy because of a one-night stand. Jesus never said that we SHOULD divorce. He only said that in cases of affairs, divorce is permitted.

And so in the movie Fireproof, she was in a relationship where divorce was permitted, and she was planning on divorcing, and planning on remarrying. Thus, I wouldn’t say that’s whorish. He’s the one who cheated.

I’m just uncomfortable with you saying that Christians are allowing people to “whore” around because we’re permitting divorce, when I don’t think that’s the case. I believe there are very narrow grounds for divorce: abuse, affairs, and in some cases, addictions. In many of those cases, I’d argue that they should separate and not remarry, such as the case of addictions.

Note that she states that there should be only a few very defined reasons for divorce, and then proceeds to expand the definition to the point where nearly every wife initiated divorce is justified. Adultery is expanded to the point where a man watching porn qualifies: He’s the one who cheated.

While Sheila uses the term pornography addiction in her comment, this is outside her primary justification (porn as adultery) for the wife’s plan to line up husband number two while still married to the first one. She states that addiction would be grounds for separation without remarriage, not to divorce and find another man. Based on her own standard even if the husband had indeed been shown as a porn addict, the wife’s actions would not have been justified on those grounds. Her justification is that watching pornography is adultery. This may be why the creators of the movie Fireproof were so murky on exactly what the husband’s transgression regarding porn really was. They didn’t feel the need to make a solid case for porn addiction before they showed the wife shutting off entirely towards her husband and actively pursuing another man. As I pointed out in my review the wife didn’t even accuse the husband of being a porn addict, and while the term was used later in the movie there was nothing which showed the husband as being an addict. Here is the exchange from the movie where we are told the husband is viewing porn:

Catherine: If looking at that trash is how you get fulfilled, then that is fine. But I will not compete with it.

Caleb: Well, I sure don’t get it from you!

Catherine: And you won’t. Because you care more about saving for your stupid boat and pleasing yourself than you ever did about me.

The fundamental problem is that Christian women are being given get out of marriage free cards while Christian men are being told man up and marry these Christian women. This selective moral softness from Christians combines with our legal system which rewards women who commit divorce theft and creates millions of fatherless children. Your husband looked at porn? Dump him and find another man! Keep in mind this isn’t some corner case example I’ve made up. This is from the movie Christians profess shows their views on marriage. Moreover, Sheila isn’t just another commenter on the internet, she is a respected author and speaker on the topic of marriage for Christian women. All men need to understand this; if your wife decides to divorce you for another man, there will be well respected Christians lining up to justify her decision and place all of the blame on you. If that means conflating viewing pornography with actual adultery, so be it. This is true even in cases where the wife was withholding sex in an effort to control the husband. She even excuses the wife lining up the other man while still married.

It isn’t just men viewing porn which gives women a get out of marriage free card though. Sheila also listed abuse as the other fundamental justification for divorce. In one of Sheila’s video blogs she reminded women that they shouldn’t assume husbands are the only ones with obligations. This brought her a chorus of emails from angry Christian women complaining that she was telling them not to be true to themselves. That Christian women would feel comfortable spouting such nonsense to her should be proof enough of what is so terribly broken in Christian culture. To Sheila’s credit, she did a follow on video blog post where she gently reminded these women that being true to yourself is not actually a biblical value. One of the youtube commenters on the original video countered with the following:

Your advice is nice, in thought, but unrealistic in practice. I did that exact thing for 7 years, as a married Christian woman. It got rough after the first year. I doubted my marriage. But I stuck it out. I convinced myself it was ME who needed to change. So I did. I completely revamped my entire being. And I did it several times over the next 6 years.

I will say, I was extremely emotionally abused. What do you suggest in those circumstances? I got out. And my life is happier than ever.

What exactly is emotional abuse? I’m not sure, but ladies you will be excited to learn it also counts as a get out of marriage free card! Sheila responded with the following:

Of course, if there is abuse going on, that is a totally different story. But changing yourself doesn’t mean that you change who you fundamentally are. It just means that you change your expectations and go to God to help you be the person He wants you to be. That’s a good kind of change. Changing so that you tolerate abuse is something else entirely. But abuse was not the issue in this woman’s letter; she just felt like she didn’t love him.

So now we know emotional abuse fits in her definition of abuse. Again, she states that only two very specific reasons justify divorce and then proceeds to expand the terms to the point where nearly every wife initiated divorce is justified.

Sheila also had the following criticism for my approach in this blog:

I find that you talk a lot on this blog about how people should never divorce (which I more or less agree with), and that women shouldn’t expect so much from their husbands (which I also agree with), and that women are asking their husbands to be both betas and alphas at the same time (which I also agree with), and that women leave their husbands too much (again, in agreement). But what I don’t find is you dealing honestly with genuine problems that couples have with communication, with distance, with betrayal of trust, with porn, etc. I agree with everything you’re saying, but I don’t think marriages can be fixed with a simple “suck it up and put on your big girl panties”. That might make someone STAY in the marriage, but it won’t make the marriage thrive, and what I’d like to see is couples who are genuinely attached and intimate.

Sheila misunderstands me. I don’t believe people should never divorce. My concern is that the definition of justified divorce has been so expanded as to make a mockery of the concept of marriage. She is also missing a fundamental point; putting on your big girl panties really does lead to happy marriages, at least in the majority of cases. Moreover, if Christians were serious about holding men and women to their vows they would then have the moral authority to try to assist these couples in good faith. While religious leaders may disagree, secular scientists have studied the issue and found that brute force willpower to stay married actually solves surprisingly difficult marital problems. It’s almost as if God designed marriage that way. I’ve covered this in detail here, but here is one of the key quotes from one paper which studied this:

Many currently happily married spouses have had extended periods of marital unhappiness, often for quite serious reasons, including alcoholism, infidelity, verbal abuse, emotional neglect, depression, illness, and work reversals. Why did these marriages survive where other marriages did not? The marital endurance ethic appears to play a big role. Many spouses said that their marriages got happier, not because they and their partner resolved problems but because they stubbornly outlasted them. With time, they told us, many sources of conflict and distress eased.

One factor which undoubtedly plays a role here is the widespread adoption of feminism by Christian and secular women alike. The knee jerk blame the husband tendency which I have described above shows how immersed modern Christianity is in modern feminism. Fellow blogger Laura Grace Robbins captured my own thoughts when she wrote:

I’m starting to think the feminism in Christianity cuts much, much deeper than I originally thought.

I’ll close with a brief defense of both Sheila Gregoire and Christian women in general. Sheila is actually one of the stronger pro marriage voices in modern Christian culture. This is what makes her fundamental weakness on the issue so deeply troubling. She isn’t on the pro divorce fringe, she is one of the speakers churches bring in to strengthen marriage. She writes some of the books Christian wives read on the topic of marriage. I have focused on her arguments because she is proof of how incredibly soft on marriage Christians in general have become. If this weren’t the case, she wouldn’t be seen as pro marriage by mainstream Christians. As for defending Christian women, there are many women who comment on this blog who do not believe that a woman is justified in divorcing one man and marrying another because the first husband viewed pornography. Single men looking to marry shouldn’t write off all Christian women. Just like there are atheist women who truly believe in marriage there still are Christian women who feel the same, and the statistics bear this out. What a man looking to marry needs to do is test for this trait in the woman herself, and not assume it comes with regular church attendance or even a seeming deep devotion to Christianity. More difficult is the question of church attendance itself. Studies have shown that divorce tends to spread like disease. Attending a church which is soft on divorce puts a man’s marriage (and therefore his children) at risk. Unfortunately no one has yet been able to identify a congregation for me which isn’t soft on marriage. I have seen one so I do know they exist. Christianity doesn’t have to be soft on marriage, the vast majority of Christians have merely chosen to be.

“He had ambition, first of all, that went high, verse 9. “We have as our ambition whether at home or absent to be pleasing to Him.” Just look at the phrase “to be pleasing to Him.” That separates spiritual ambition from sinful ambition. Paul never sought great things for himself, he always sought great things for God. The Apostle is like a violinist who cares not for the audience applause but for the smile of the master who taught him. He lived to please the Lord. Everything he did he did to the glory of the Lord.”

Basically the only ambition Christians (women included) should have is in pleasing the Lord, in pleasing HIM. This does NOT mean primarily pleasing women, as much as many would like. Christian ambition is not about pleasing women, feminists, men, the world, or even ourselves. This is what many will find so upsetting. I’m sure some will say that in pursuing worldly ambitions, you end up pleasing women and this in extension will please the Lord, but that is certainly a stretch. The aim should be God first and all others second. Paul did not seek great things for himself or others as the “Manning up” message forces Christian men to do. He rather sought great things for God. His focus was on Him rather than on the many hoops women and society can make a man jump through. If in a man’s aim to please God he happens to end up with a successful career that benefits himself and family, that then is the best of both worlds. It is a backwards approach though to aim at pleasing the world first and then hope that God will be satisfied with whatever hoops you jump through.

“In 1 Corinthians chapter 4 he really makes some very, very powerful statements about this. Verse 3, he says, “To me it’s a very small thing that I should be examined by you or by any human court.” It is a minor detail in my life to be examined by people. I really have little regard for what you think or what any human tribunal things. Any evaluation by people has very limited value to me.”

Now he’s not saying that in an unhealthy attitude. “I don’t care what you think” attitude which betrays some kind of open display of indifference. But he is simply saying, “At the end of the day I don’t do what I do for your approval. My accountability really is not to you, it’s way beyond that. There is a higher court than any human court.” He even goes on to say, “I don’t even examine myself, I’m conscious of nothing against myself, yet I’m not by this acquitted.”

“At the end of the day I don’t do what I do for your approval. My accountability really is not to you, it’s way beyond that. There is a higher court than any human court.”

I suspect Christian men do not hear that message enough and why would they as it competes and takes away attention from women and the world. It also is the complete opposite of the “manning up” message. “Manning up” is about doing things for human/societal approval. The motivations behind “Manning up” is not to “man up” for God, to please Him, its so women can get married and have their ‘happily ever after’.

We are seeing a growing movement of men who are taking on the above attitude. Whether these men are Christian or not, it still sends a powerful message and cannot be ignored under the “manning up” banner. Men have ambitions, its just not towards women (and this is where the outrage stems). If the man is Christian, his ambition (if biblically understood) is in pleasing the Lord and if a man is not a Christian his ambitions may just be in pleasing himself in the interests of self-preservation (which cannot be judged as a bad thing if the man does not profess to being Christian).

“What motivates you? No earthly reward, no earthly honor, no earthly threat, no earthly possibility, no earthly circumstance, no earthly opportunity motivated Paul. He could take it all.”

By Kevin DeYoung’s standard of ambition, looks like Paul would have been categorized as one unambitious, unmotivated dude. What motivates Christian men should not be pleasing women. The loss of earthly honor that may come from not “manning up” should be of no concern. Saying this will certainly get me in trouble with some traditionalists, but as mentioned above, I am not saying this for their approval.

If “godly ambition” is called for, let it be just that–ambition towards pleasing God. Let it not be used in vain to push man’s ambition towards pleasing the world.

This article takes the cake for being the best example of a “man up” shaming lecture. What makes it so is not the usual talking points, but that it is Christian–proof that the feminism in Christianity cuts deep and if Christians can’t even figure out what is so very wrong about the tone and motivations of the article, there is no hope for their secular counterparts. The problem universally in our culture is with men and Christians and non-Christians continue to make this very clear.

Christian women are pleading: “Please speak to the men in our generation and tell them to be men.” Sound familiar? I suppose the difference with the Christian women in general (not all) is they have to get a male author or anyone other than their ‘oh so meek, feminine self’ to do the legwork for them. Christian women have no issue with taking action in their lives (such as college and careers), but when it comes to what they want in relationships they retreat to demure, helpless wall flowers who need a man who is man enough to tell other men to “man up”. They can’t take their dating life by the horns with the same fervor they took their college education.

Christian men are no doubt asking for women to be women as well. To demonstrate their desire to be women, not by rushing off to careers and taking on manly endeavors, but by being wives, mothers, and helpmates first and foremost.Women who take on manly endeavors and characteristics should not be surprised if men are taking on typically female characteristics, like being less “ambitious”.

“Go to almost any church and you’ll meet mature, intelligent, attractive Christian women who want to get married and virtually no men to pursue them.”

Really? I know commenters experiences and my own experiences will beg to differ. It took me awhile to find a church where the young women were not in mini-skirts, with bra straps showing, and texting away on their cell phones. It took me awhile to find a women’s bible study where gossiping and men bashing did not occur regularly. The women in theses churches and groups were not even close to thinking about marrying, but about college, grad schools, and “fun” dating until they were established. They certainly met worldly standards of maturity and intelligence, but were lacking in more Christian attributes of humility and wisdom.

Men do not think they need to pursue because Christian women have proven they do not have an issue biblically or otherwise to pursue something if they really, really want it. So, why is it different with men? They pursue with a passion careers, jobs, college, and even pastoral leadership, but when it comes to their dating life, they still have the old-fashioned notion that men are to do the pursuing. It just doesn’t add up and women can’t have it both ways. Either you are a pursuer and take on college, career, men, and all your dreams or you meekly and quietly submit to the plans of the Lord and learn to be content in whether you go to college or not or whether a man pursues you or not. There is an attitude of submission that still survives the modern church, but only when it comes to being pursued in dating. Before dating and I suspect after dating, in marriage, a modern Christian woman’s attitude reverts back to pursuer/conqueror/leader. It is just this narrow gap in a modern young woman’s life where she gets nostalgic for the old-fashioned values of being pursued. In short, men receive a mixed message from a woman who is ambitious in all other matters except her dating life.

“These women are often in graduate programs and may have started a career already. But they aren’t feminists. They are eager to embrace the roles of wife and mother. Most of the women I’ve met don’t object to the being a helpmate. There just doesn’t seem to be a lot of mates to go around.”

Indeed, they have no problem getting serious about college and careers, but when it comes to getting married, they expect to just roll over and let the men come do all the work and shame them when they don’t. It may be one thing if we lived back in a pre-feminist era when women did not pursue college and careers, when men truly were expected to do the pursuing and courting, but modern Christian women can’t have it both ways. You can’t insist on being an independent career woman and take on the values of the modern world yet also shiver into an 1800 timid, Christian girl when it comes to dating. He insists these women are not feminists, but as my readers know there are also sheep that insist they are not wolves. A career woman with a cross around her neck does not negate her feminist choices. If women were truly eager to embrace wife and mother roles, they would have been serious about it at a young age, more serious than they were about their graduate program. Wife and motherhood should not be an afterthought if it is a priority. There are certainly mates to go around, just not good enough or man enough mates, in other words, mates they don’t want to help.

“First, the Christian men that are “good guys” could use a little–what’s the word I’m looking for–ambition. Every pastor has railed on video games at some point. But the problem is not really video games, it’s what gaming can (but doesn’t always) represent. It’s the picture of a 20something or 30something guy who doesn’t seem to want anything out of life. He may or may not have a job. He may or may not live with his parents. Those things are sometimes out of our control. There’s a difference between a down-on-his-luck fella charging hard to make something out of himself and a guy who seems content to watch movies, make enough to eat frozen pizzas in a one room apartment, play Madden, watch football 12 hours on Saturday, show up at church for an hour on Sunday and then go home to watch more football.”

There really is no sympathy here for the man who really is down on his luck, for the man who is struggling for identity in a struggling economy, which I believe makes up the majority of these alleged unambitious men. I wonder what would be the advice to a Christian woman who is dating or wants to date a young man who is going through a tough time. Is it “avoid them like the plaque” until you find Mr. Perfect (who can then later loose it all or his job in an instant) or can a lesson be learned that if you want to be a “helpmate” in marriage it may involve helping your mate in a “down-on-his-luck” situation.

“I don’t think young women are expecting Mr. Right to be a corporate executive with two houses, three cars, and a personality like Dale Carnegie. They just want a guy with some substance. A guy with plans. A guy with some intellectual depth. A guy who can winsomely take initiative and lead a conversation. A guy with consistency. A guy who no longer works at his play and plays with his faith. A guy with a little desire to succeed in life. A guy they can imagine providing for a family, praying with the kids at bedtime, mowing the lawn on Saturday, and being eager to take everyone to church on Sunday. Where are the dudes that will grow into men?”

I like how he suggests women don’t have such high standards as to expect an executive and three cars, but then goes on with a laundry list of items that women are to expect. His list may seem like more virtuous or Christian qualities than desiring an alpha with three cars, but the desires for perfection are the same. “Some substance” turns out to be a lot of substance and I have to wonder what happens to a man if he fails in any of these ways. If he fails to “lead a conversation”, to have the right level of “intellectual depth”, to “pray with the kids” and especially if he “fails to provide”, what will happen to those men, who cannot meet or sometimes come in short with Christian women expectations? Are young women equipped to deal with a less than perfect man or will they shame him or divorce him when he isn’t? Note it may not even be enough to take the family to church on Sunday, but he must also be “eager” in doing so.

“Men, you don’t have to be rich and you don’t have to climb corporate ladders. You don’t have to fix cars and grow a beard. But it’s time to take a little initiative–in the church, with your career, and with women. Stop circling around and start going somewhere. It’s probably a good idea to be more like your grandpa and less like Captain Jack Sparrow. Even less like Peter Pan. Show some godly ambition. Take some risks. Stop looking for play dates and–unless God is calling you to greater service through singleness–start looking for a wife.”

Yes, men, take initiative in a feminized church, in a feminized work place, and with less than feminized women!* “Circling around” sounds a lot like the secular article that says men are “thrashing around”. Aw, and cue the “Peter Pan” line. “Godly ambition” may come if women start to show “godly submission”, but as long as Christian women are out chasing worldly pursuits, pursuing degrees and fancy careers, there leaves little room for men to show ambition as the women are doing it for them.